NYT Ombudsman chides editors for McCain story

And well he should...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/opinion/24pubed.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

 

Nice job by the public editor. I don't know what the NY Times was thinking. The innuendo of an affair was so cavalier in its mention I thought I was reading STAR magazine.

It was just a bad job. There were some interesting things there, but it was overshadowed by reporting about a suspected affair with no proof. Bad, bad, bad job.

 

In dissing McCain with blatant innuendo, NYT shows further proof how blatantly a liberal POS it is. I mean even NYT fans who are democrats have to be disgusted about this.

I'd love to see the NYT, or even Time magazine while we're at it, show some guts and report on Hillary's well-known bi-sexual escapades dating back to her days in Arkansas. This is not rumor--it's just a part of life to people who have known her for decades. I"m not condemning her for it, but I"m amazed just how far media will go to turn their backs on it. But then they nail a guy like McCain.

Go ahead--explain this to me.

 

Good column.

The original story was terrible. But even more disturbing was the arrogance of the Times' editors in defending the story.

 

Does bisexual mean she genuinely hates people of both genders?

 

Riiiiight.
Try selling this to your editor. But, but, but I know it's a part of her life ... it needs to be a story damit!
Same rumors get passed around about certain athletes. No reputable newspaper would ever allow you to run with it, based on "well known rumors ... it's just a part of life to people who have known them."

 

Right, because the media's NEVER tried to stick it to Hillary or the Clintons any chance it's gotten.

Back to listening to Savage for you.

 

Spreading crap based on rumors infuriates me.
The NYT tried to do it, badly.

 

The fact that the Times ran this story makes me wonder about the politics at the paper - the inter-office politics. You'd have to think, considering the questionable ethics involved, that most reporters there wouldn't be able to get this story through, and that maybe the editors were swooned by whoever wrote it (I don't remember off-hand.)

Maybe I'm wrong, but how else does this shit happen? A naked smear on McCain doesn't sound right. I just think you can get a little too close to a story.

All they had to do was ask me. I would have told them they didn't have enough to run it.

 

Didn't two reporters quit either while they were reporting on the story or during the editing process? I believe one went to the WaPost (or back to the WaPost)?
It does seem the NYT decided to go with the story after it became clear The New Republic was preparing a story about the story.

http://www.kansascity.com/438/story/499535.html
(from the above)
Separately, McCain's top aide Mark Salter told Time magazine he believed the Times ran with the story because The New Republic magazine was about to run its own story - which it did post, on Thursday - detailing the conflict within the paper over getting the article into print, and wanted to avoid embarrassment.

 

I nominate you for idiot of the day.

Back to the grown-up discussion, this seemed like a case of bitchy reporters wearing Keller down and leaking to other media to help them. I have zero respect for any reporter involved in that sort of thing and Keller, who apparently had the right instincts at the outset, comes off as weak.

Great job by Hoyt.

The article was notable for what it did not say: It did not say what convinced the advisers that there was a romance. It did not make clear what McCain was admitting when he acknowledged behaving inappropriately — an affair or just an association with a lobbyist that could look bad. And it did not say whether Weaver, the only on-the-record source, believed there was a romance. The Times did not offer independent proof, like the text messages between Detroit’s mayor and a female aide that The Detroit Free Press disclosed recently, or the photograph of Donna Rice sitting on Gary Hart’s lap.

The reporters didn't get the story.

 

So heterosexual affairs are fair game, but lesbian or bisexual affairs are off-limits?
Just wanted confirmation that some people want it both ways -- no pun intended.